Booklist Adult Books Readers’ Forum: the Post-9/11 Novel

Booklist Senior Editor Keir Graff (My Fellow Americans) leads a panel of distinguished authors discussing the burgeoning genre of post-9/11 literature June 29 at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California. Carolyn See (Golden Days) speaks about conflating personal and global catastrophe, Janette Turner Hospital (Due Preparations for the Plague) talks about her visit to Ground Zero and how it influenced her book, and Ellen Gilchrist (A Dangerous Age) expresses her certainty that someone will one day write the definitive 9/11 book. More videos at alfocus.ala.org.

July 23, 2008

Booklist Senior Editor Keir Graff (My Fellow Americans) leads a panel of distinguished authors discussing the burgeoning genre of post-9/11 literature June 29 at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California. Carolyn See (Golden Days) speaks about conflating personal and global catastrophe, Janette Turner Hospital (Due Preparations for the Plague) talks about her visit to Ground Zero and how it influenced her book, and Ellen Gilchrist (A Dangerous Age) expresses her certainty that someone will one day write the definitive 9/11 book. More videos at alfocus.ala.org.

This video, played during the Opening General Session of ALA's 2008 Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, highlights the value of public awareness to the library profession. ALA presidents past and future join others in explaining how investing in partnerships, working with celebrities like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julie Andrews, and using new media platforms like YouTube can result in major media exposure and increased awareness and usage of libraries. More videos at alfocus.ala.org.

Jamie Lee Curtis

Actor and author Jamie Lee Curtis entertains an audience of children and parents June 30 at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California. After warming up the crowd with her baby impersonation, Curtis reads from her new book "Big Words for Little People." Afterwards, she explains how she found the idea for her first book, and then speculates on why celebrities are often compelled to write children's books. More videos at alfocus.ala.org.

Latest Library Links

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Douglas Soule writes: “Facing a federal lawsuit with accusations of unconstitutional censorship, a Florida school board has agreed to place books it banned back on library shelves as part of an out-of-court settlement. In total, 36 books will be returned in the Nassau County School District, according to a settlement agreement signed September 11. They range from classics like Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini to And Tango Makes Three, a children’s picture book about a same-sex penguin pair.”

Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat, Sept. 12, July 24
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Becky Siegel Spratford writes: “I am constantly correcting people—educated people, library users, readers—who think that when we buy a book for the library we get it in all formats for one price. They assume we pay slightly more [for electronic formats] than them, but they think for that price we get all those copies they see in our collections. We need to also work on how we communicate this issue to our card holders. So how can we share this complex issue more easily?”

RA for All, Sept. 11
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Chris Lewis writes: “For my generation and generations before us, the public library was an equalizing force in every town, helping anyone move toward the American dream. A ruling in Hachette v. Internet Archive has just thrown that promise of equality into doubt by limiting libraries’ access to controlled digital lending (CDL). On September 4, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals [affirmed a lower court’s decision that CDL through the National Emergency Library was not fair use.] If the courts won’t recognize CDL-based library lending as fair use, then the next step falls to Congress.”

MIT Technology Review, Sept. 11
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“Hispanic Heritage Month honors the contributions and influence of Hispanic and Latine Americans to the history, culture, and achievements of the United States, and is celebrated from September 15 to October 15 annually. Check out these recent releases from authors of Hispanic or Latine background!”

Seattle Public Library, September
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Cara S. Bertram writes: “The year 2023 was another record-breaker for book bans. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) documented 1,247 attempts to censor library books and other materials—most of which were works by or about people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, or both. But attempts to limit access to literature in the US are as old as our nation itself. American Libraries travels through time to outline our country’s history of censorship—and the library workers, authors, and advocates who have defended the right to read.”

American Libraries feature, Sept./Oct.
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The Library of Congress’s 2024 Literacy Awards recognized four top honorees on September 8, International Literacy Day: The LaundryCares Foundation, an Illinois-based nonprofit that installs learning spaces in laundromats across the country; New Zealand’s Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori Inc., a network of schools working to preserve and promote the Māori language; We Need Diverse Books of Bethesda, Maryland, which helps authors and illustrators with diverse backgrounds get their books published; and the Alsama Project in Beirut, Lebanon, which educates Syrian refugee youth frequently left out of Lebanese schools.

Library of Congress Timeless, Sept. 9
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Michael Rodriguez writes: “In the first half of 2024, institutions of higher education in the United States closed permanently at the rate of one per week, according to one estimate, with little sign of slowing down. Where the author lives in Pennsylvania, eight colleges have closed, consolidated, or announced plans to do so since January 2024 alone. These closures directly impact small private colleges and the communities built around them, but closures also ripple throughout the academy, disbanding libraries and archives and endangering access to and preservation of the scholarly record.”

The Scholarly Kitchen, Sept. 5

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Booklist Adult Books Readers’ Forum: the Post-9/11 Novel

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2008 ALA Annual Conference Opening General Session Video

Jamie Lee Curtis